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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25106404">ring the bells that still can ring</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai'>AlexSeanchai</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Confused Alya Césaire, F/M, Identity Reveal, Minor Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe, Nonbinary Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Podfic Welcome, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Romantic Fluff, Wedding Planning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:08:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,413</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25106404</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was an entirely pragmatic proposal: there are legal and financial benefits to matrimony, and Ladybug and Chat Noir could reduce their separate burdens by harnessing themselves together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire &amp; Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Leonard Cohen Title Challenge (Any Freaking Song but "Hallelujah")</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ring the bells that still can ring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompt: <i>"anyway, long story short, we're engaged now."</i></p><p>note: I know it's not F/M, but it's none of the others either <span>😿</span></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alya drapes her jacket over the chair opposite Marinette's at the café table and leans over to see what's on the tablet Marinette and Adrien are squished together to bend over: an awful lot of Chinese characters, apparently, which at least—unlike Marinette's top-speed babble about some jewelry box—doesn't leave Alya feeling she <em>should</em> understand it.</p><p>More interestingly, when Adrien's phone lights up with an incoming call from Gabriel Agreste, it's silent and they ignore it, in favor of picking up Marinette's half-eaten slice of jam-slathered baguette and shoving it in her mouth. "Hey, Alya," Adrien says, grinning at the sharp look Marinette gives them while chewing, "you wouldn't know if there's any rumors already flying, would you?" and winces in a way that definitely looks like Marinette just stomped on their toes.</p><p>("I haven't even applied to any universities," Ladybug grumbled, and cast her yo-yo to strike the wall across the alley with a satisfying, non-damaging <i>thunk</i>. "No one's said anything, except my parents made a point of telling me I always have a home with them and a job at—oh fuck this nonsense—but I <em>know</em> I'm disappointing everyone. But how will I work anywhere else when I know I'll have to ditch several days a month, and how will I live anywhere else if I keep getting fired, and—")</p><p>"What, that you're secretly gay for Carapace?" Adrien Agreste™ might be a straight cis allo guy, however much people might speculate Adrien was gay or ace based on how little Adrien spoke of having a love life aside from (Adrien's words) an 'oversized celebrity crush' on Ladybug, but Alya's friend Adrien kept no secrets from her; they were constitutionally incapable of it, and she and Nino agreed long ago that if Adrien ever got up the nerve to proposition Carapace—or Rena Rouge, though that seemed less likely; or if Marinette were to proposition Rena Rouge (or possibly Carapace) as she contemplated in Alya's direction at intervals about doing—neither Nino nor Alya would be cheating as long as the other got details after. "Nothing recent, no," Alya says, dropping into her chair and watching Marinette and Adrien trade glances; "are there about to be rumors?"</p><p>("I have an idea," said Chat Noir slowly, "and you won't like it, but promise me you'll hear me out? And take some time to think over my real reasons, and maybe forget the ones you'll think of before I explain?"</p><p>"That sounds mildly ominous, chaton, but yes, I promise.")</p><p>Marinette's phone blares her standard ringtone: Alya barely glimpses that the call's from Chloé before Marinette rejects it. "What does your schedule look like next—Thursday, maybe?" But she doesn't give Alya time to check her phone: "So you know what you've been trying to help me do approximately since I met this colossal dork?"</p><p>"That long, huh," Adrien says, dry tone at odds with the heart eyes they—actually <em>might</em> now know they're giving Marinette, huh. They take a sip of their coffee and add, "So which of us is the late groomer?"</p><p>"Me, obviously," Marinette says with a snort, "and don't tell me you haven't been briding your time."</p><p>("I think we should get married."</p><p>Ladybug stared at them, mouth hanging open, face painfully blank; Chat Noir rushed to say "Not because I'm in love with you" before she could even start to object, "I have practical reasons—like, I have money, I already did the math, we can get an apartment together and we'll have enough for rent and groceries and utilities that we'll be okay with no income at all for a few months, and if your dream career is art or design or anything like that, we can launch a business from our living room, I'll learn accounting and everything so you don't have to worry about anything but the creative parts, and I'll—"</p><p>"—be my next of kin and primary beneficiary of my estate and vice versa," Ladybug interrupted, two fingers on their lips, "and whenever I want kitty cuddles I won't have to go far to get those, will I?")</p><p>Alya gawks at them both. "Are those <em>wedding</em> puns?"</p><p>"Long story short," Adrien says, waving the last uneaten bit of baguette and jam where Marinette can't quite reach to steal it with her stylus-free hand (which is as bare as it's always been; she is wearing dark cabochon earrings and a mostly out-of-sight pendant that looks like that red resin teardrop she's had for years, nothing out of the ordinary, and Adrien's jewelry is as always nothing more than the silver ring Alya thinks was their mother's), "yes."</p><p>"—Don't you think you've <em>skipped</em> a few steps?"</p><p>Adrien and Marinette trade glances again, then return their attention to the tablet, Marinette running her stylus tip down the edge of the device. "That's what the list is for," Marinette says, almost absently, "making sure we know everything we need beforehand so we don't miss—wait, shit, prenuptial agreement!"</p><p>("We'll have to figure out how to introduce our civilian selves to each other's loved ones," Ladybug continued, well into strategic planning mode, "oh, and I'm pretty sure my parents think I'm out having a one-night stand right now—they've been really pointedly supportive and not prying—so we should decide how long to say we've been fucking?"</p><p>"—You're going to kill me, my lady!" Chat Noir wheezed, face burning.</p><p>Even in the dim light of the quarter moon, they could see how Ladybug's cheeks abruptly outmatched her suit—but only for a moment before she recovered: "Only a little, and you'll die happy?")</p><p>"—Shit, yes, that is super important," Adrien says, starting to unlock their phone and pausing to wait out an incoming call from Nathalie, "and I do <em>not</em> want to go through Nathalie to get lawyers—"</p><p>"Penny Rolling," Marinette says, making a note, "or at least I assume her lawyer friends aren't all at the same firm. Hopefully we won't have to move the City Hall part any further than the week after next, but it's not like we've put any effort into planning the family and friends ceremony yet, so we can push that back as far as we like."</p><p>"Dibs on maid of honor," Alya says at once.</p><p>"Too late, Chloé already called it," Adrien says, to which Marinette (clearly) kicks them in the ankle again. "Which we are ignoring, for reasons including, one, we were eight, and two, no prizes for guessing why Father and Nathalie keep calling me or for guessing who saw the banns posted and told them."</p><p>Marinette smiles, one of the secretive ones Alya hasn't figured out how to read yet: "Who else would I ask, Alya?"</p><p>"Ruling out Kagami," Adrien adds, "since she's probably going to fight Nino for best man."</p><p>"She wins that unless we give him a more substantial shield than the nearest trash can lid," Marinette says, attention back on the tablet and off of what Alya's face does at the thought of Carapace armed with a <em>trash can lid</em>, "and/or take her sword away—or else set the whole battle in, I don't know, Mario Kart."</p><p>"Eh, she might still beat his ass at Mario Kart or Ultimate Mecha Strike," Adrien muses, "and speaking of non sequiturs, Alya, exactly how long has it taken me to notice she's madly in love with me?"</p><p>"Something about an umbrella in the rain the day you met," Alya says breezily, already taking mental notes on which stories might and might not embarrass either newlywed-to-be too badly for Alya to tell the wedding guests.</p><p>"Madly clumsy, more like," mutters Marinette (to which Adrien blows a raspberry), "and don't pretend total ignorance, either, Papa-Garou is—"</p><p>A beat.</p><p>"Fuck, did we tell them?" Adrien asks.</p><p>"Nope, and they won't believe us without a ring, either!"</p><p>("We can't have a ceremony as Chat Noir and Ladybug, can we," Chat realized, "too obvious an akuma target. Pity, that," they added, carefully watching her expression; "it'd be easier to pick which best friend gets to witness the legal one and who gets to be best man at the formal one if there were also going to be another formal one—not <em>easy</em>, but if Carapace gets one, Ryūko gets another, and Multimouse gets the third—"</p><p>Ladybug tilted the rest of the way into Chat Noir's lap, laughing helplessly: "So much," she managed finally, "for asking Aspik if they're up for maid of honor!")</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know">My comment policy</a>: tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.</p><p>Find me on <a href="https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/">Dreamwidth</a> and <a href="https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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